We are placing an ever-growing,
devastating set of plastic
fingerprints on our natural world.
Every single molecule of plastic
ever manufactured — except for
a very small percentage that has
been incinerated — still exists
somewhere in our environment.
Most apparent and shocking is the
plastic waste now scattered across
the surfaces and depths of our
planet’s oceans.

For me the reality of the situation
kicked-in back in 2006 when I
came across a UNEP publication:
“Ecosystems and Biodiversity in
Deep Waters and High Seas.” The
report pointed out that there were 46,000 pieces of floating marine
debris on or below every square
mile of our ocean, with the problem
particularly acute in certain areas.
The most notorious — labelled the
”Eastern Garbage Patch” — is a
swirling gyre in the North Pacific
twice the size of Texas, where
researchers found six pounds of
plastic litter for every pound of
plankton. This and four other
enormous gyres of swirling trash
cover approximately 40 percent of
our planet’s surface.

As much as 90 to 95 percent of
the total amount of marine debris
is plastic, which, unlike organic
compounds, doesn’t biodegrade.

Plastic is impervious to enzymatic
breakdown and literally jams
up the code of nature. The very
durability that renders it so useful
to humans also makes it incredibly
harmful to all natural life cycles
in every ecosystem worldwide, it
has a double effect on fish, marine
mammals and birds.

First is ingestion of plastic, as by
the majestic and now endangered
albatross. The laysan albatrosses
that nest on Kure Atoll and
Oahu Hawaii get it worst.
Researcher Lindsay Young of the
University of Hawaii found
“so many small plastic toys in the
birds from Kure Atoll…that we
could have assembled a complete
nativity scene with them.” Almost
half of the 500,000 albatross chicks
born every year on Midway are
thought to die from consuming
plastic fed to them by their
parents. One was found to have
306 pieces of plastic in its belly.

The second major issue, toxicity
transference, is even more ominous.
Plastic photo-degrades in the open ocean, beginning to breakdown into
simpler compounds without ever
actually disappearing. The resulting
tiny pellets — called nurdles or
‘mermaid tears’ — sponge up
fat-soluble compounds like PCBs,
DDT, and a host of herbicides
and pesticides present in diluted
quantities in the ocean. Plastics also
have a nasty affinity for oil.

Small amounts of these chemicals
work their way up the food chain
from filter feeders through to the
fish fingers on the kitchen table.
So, all over the world, children and
adults are unwittingly exposing
themselves to low levels of toxicity.

Plastic and other marine debris
is also smothering beaches —
especially those in the path of a
swirling garbage patch. Currents
that drag rubbish into the gyres
also shoot it out. The 19 islands
of the Hawaiian archipelago, for
instance, receive massive quantities
of trash, some of it decades old.
Some beaches are buried under 5 to
10 feet of refuse: others are riddled
with fine granules of “plastic sand.”

In October 2006 the US government
established the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands Marine
Monument to try to quell the rising
tide of debris. Congress passed
legislation to increase funding for
trash removal and ordered several
government agencies to expand
cleanup efforts.

Yet people studying the issue point
to an overall lack of viable solutions.
Trawling the oceans for trash
would be impractical and costly and
would ultimately harm plankton
and other marine life. Cleaning up
the north Pacific gyre alone would
involve clearing a section of ocean
spanning the area of a continent
and extending 100 feet below the
surface. Managing the waste on
land, where fully 80 percent of ocean
debris originate, is more feasible and
exponentially more effective.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.
If we can shift the perception of
plastic from waste to a valuable
resource we can slow, and in
some places even reverse, the
environmental damage. Meeting
this challenge can be an adventure
— an honest-to-goodness,
swashbuckling adventure like the
Plastiki voyage across the Pacific
last year on a boat made of 12,500
discarded plastic bottles.

The Plastiki expedition tried to
focus on more than the destination.
Our journey and viewpoint created
a platform for smart thinking
— and a place where everyone
acknowledged nobody is as smart as
everybody. We strove to cultivate
a community of thought leaders,
designers, engineers, and scientists
that recognized their role as being
part of a holistic system in which every individual action creates
a reaction — and realised that
we need to stop and realise the
devastating impact of our everincreasing
human fingerprints.

Together is the only way we can
move forward and create the
necessary solutions for our oceans
and our planet — so we can stop
apologizing to the million sea birds
and 100,000 marine mammals
unnecessarily killed, and to the
children already asking why no-one
is reacting.

For some this will mean lobbying
companies and communities to find
alternatives to plastic packaging. Or
it might entail getting governments
to expand recycling programs and
accommodate bio-plastics in the
market place.

But the Plastiki looked to inspire
a sea change, if you will, in how we
view waste and integrate it back
into the web of life. This starts with
recognizing there isn’t a place called
‘away,’ and involves nurturing and
directing inquisitiveness toward
inventing smart ways to design and
use everyday materials. We took
the plastic bottle, which symbolizes
what’s wrong with dumb thinking,
and turned it into a platform of
hope by showing it can be an
effective and useful resource.

The Plastiki was not just about
voicing of problems, but about
articulating and acting upon
solutions. If a plastic bottle can
become a boat, and that boat can
forge its way into the collective
imagination of people everywhere,
then who knows what else is
possible with a little curiosity,
imagination, and time to innovate.
One day, maybe, we could dream
for more than just the survival of
our oceans.